Notions of Health and Manhood in a Guatemalan Gym: Patterns Contra to Machismo

Notions of Health and Manhood in a Guatemalan Gym investigates how sport and fitness factor into considerations of manhood in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala. Ollin neatly compartmentalizes his research sections and balances text with visual elements. A word cloud, QR code, table, map, and photographs all engage the viewer. Key visual elements: Three-column layout Section structure forms a narrative Gym photographs as focal point This was created for the Center for Undergraduate Research & Fellowships (CURF) Undergraduate Research Symposium.https://repository.upenn.edu/showcase_posters/1008/thumbnail.jp

Tracheal glomus tumor: a case report and review of the literature

Glomus tumors are rare neoplasms that typically occur within the dermis or subcutis of the subungual space. Primary glomus tumors of the thorax are exceedingly uncommon, thus standard-of-care management is lacking. In this report we describe the management of a patient presenting with a symptomatic glomus tumor of the posterior trachea, and provide a comprehensive review including all documented tracheal glomus tumor reports

Anthrofest 2012

The University of Pennsylvania anthropology annual undergraduate research conference known as ANTHROFEST brings together undergraduates involved in research across all concentrations in anthropology, as well as faculty and the broader undergraduate and graduate community. Each year, select students present and discuss their original research to the community at Penn. The conference is open to the public

Charlson comorbidity index applied to shunted idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus

Abstract A series of epidemiological studies have shown the limited life expectancy of patients suffering from idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH). In most cases, comorbid medical conditions are the cause of death, rather than iNPH. Though it has also been shown that shunting improves both life quality and lifetime. We sought to investigate the utility of the Charlson comorbidity index (CCI) for improved preoperative risk–benefit assessment of shunt surgery in individual iNPH cases. 208 shunted iNPH cases were prospectively investigated. Two in-person follow up visits at 3 and 12 months assessed postoperative clinical status. The correlation of the age adjusted CCI with survival was investigated over the median observation time of 2.37 years (IQR 1.16–4.15). Kaplan Meier statistics revealed that patients with a CCI score of 0–5 have a 5-year survival rate of 87%, compared to only 55% in patients with CCI > 5. Cox multivariate statistics revealed that the CCI was an independent predictor of survival, while common preoperative iNPH scores (modified Rankin Scale (mRS), gait score, and continence score) are not. As expected, mRS, gait, and continence scores improved during the postoperative follow up period, though relative improvement on any of these was not predicted by baseline CCI. The CCI is an easily applicable preoperative predictor of survival time in shunted iNPH patients. The lack of a correlation between the CCI and functional outcome means that even patients with multiple comorbidities and limited remaining lifetime may appreciate benefit from shunt surgery

Intraoperative near-infrared imaging can distinguish cancer from normal tissue but not inflammation.

Defining tumor from non-tumor tissue is one of the major challenges of cancer surgery. Surgeons depend on visual and tactile clues to select which tissues should be removed from a patient. Recently, we and others have hypothesized near-infrared (NIR) imaging can be used during surgery to differentiate tumors from normal tissue.We enrolled 8 canines and 5 humans undergoing cancer surgery for NIR imaging. The patients were injected with indocyanine green (ICG), an FDA approved non-receptor specific NIR dye that accumulates in hyperpermeable tissues, 16-24 hours prior to surgery. During surgery, NIR imaging was used to discriminate the tumor from non-tumor tissue.NIR imaging identified all tumors with a mean signal-to-background ratio of 6.7. Optical images were useful during surgery in discriminating normal tissue from cancer. In 3 canine cases and 1 human case, the tissue surrounding the tumor was inflamed due to obstruction of the vascular supply due to mass effect. In these instances, NIR imaging could not distinguish tumor tissue from tissue that was congested, edematous and did not contain cancer.This study shows that NIR imaging can identify tumors from normal tissues, provides excellent tissue contrast, and it facilitates the resection of tumors. However, in situations where there is significant peritumoral inflammation, NIR imaging with ICG is not helpful. This suggests that non-targeted NIR dyes that accumulate in hyperpermeable tissues will have significant limitations in the future, and receptor-specific NIR dyes may be necessary to overcome this problem

Preclinical evidence for NIR tumor labeling to detect primary and metastatic tumor deposits.

<p>(A) Five cancer cell types were injected into the flank of syngeneic mice. Once established (200 mm3), animals were dosed with 7.5 mg/kg of ICG and imaged. Tumors were harvested, imaged and stained for CD31 (Marked with black arrows). Histology images taken at 200x magnification. (B) C57bl/6 mice (n = 21) were injected with LLC cells in their flanks on Day 0. Starting on Day 12, the animals were euthanized, dosed with 7.5 mg/kg ICG 24 hours earlier and their thoracic cavities opened. Observers determined if the metastatic tumor nodules were visible in the lung. NIR imaging was then used to detect disease that was not visible to the un-assisted human eye. Histology images taken at 100x.</p

Representative intraoperative image of a canine lung cancer.

<p>(A) Signal-to-background ratio of tumor to surrounding normal lung tissue <i>in situ</i> and <i>ex vivo</i> in 8 canines. All values are reported in arbitrary units (a.u.). ^†Due to the large size of this tumor, no measurements of normal lung fluorescence could be obtained ex vivo. (B) After opening the chest, the tumor was visualized in the chest. The tumor was well-circumscribed and was highly fluorescent (signal-to-background ratio 11.3). The tumor lies in the caudad position and the hilum of the lung is cranial. (C) <i>Ex vivo</i>, the tumor was fluorescent (SBR 12.7) and the margins of the tumor were well-defined. (D) H&E confirmed a lung adenocarcinoma with 2+ CD31 staining. The signal-to-background ratio (SBR) was higher <i>ex vivo</i> than <i>in situ</i> because of superior control of the surrounding environment such as lighting conditions, exposure and lack of motion. Although the fluorescence from the tumors did not significantly change, the background fluorescence from the normal lung was reduced when the environment could be better controlled. Microscopically, the tumor microvascular density (MVD) did not seem to impact the degree of fluorescence.</p